Demon meets Angel
by Five seas
Summary: AU. A dingy bar. A reformed bad girl tells a story to an unlikely listener, seeking a way to go back home. Crack, yuri, charadeath, and cursing. Yoru/Nel


_**I don't own Bleach. Guess what that makes this fic?

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Demon meets Angel

He approached her slowly, in that roundabout way that young men do when they see a beautiful woman that is, obviously, way out of their league. Ever seen a catfight? It occurs between two tomcats, which rather fucks up it's meaning into popular culture where you use the term to indicate the open-fist, hair pulling and bitch slapping brawl that occurs between two girls. And unlike in real life, where it is sprawled by a broken nail or stolen boyfriend, in nature, it starts when one cat invades the personal space of the other. Unlike real life, it is slow and suspenseful and tense, with the two tomcats waving their tales and making that deep throat rumble that makes people often mistake them for small tigers. From then, it depends whether one cat will remove itself from the space of the other, or get a claw straight into its face.

In this case, the circumstances weren't very different.

As he walked through the bar, inhaling the thick smoke that replaced breathable air and wondering how to go about this, he almost felt like his pocketbook was burning a hole into his ass through the thin fabric of his sweatpants. Of course, he had one for all the appointments he couldn't put in his organizer, but the uncensored version of it contained every single newspaper article he could find about her, every picture that had come out on a tabloid or the cover of Vogue, every paparazzi shot that had come out of her, carefully clipped and installed between the pages like a dried flower. Almost stalker-like in his admiration for her, he'd been looking forward to finding her out and knowing her better.

But how can one know a Goddess? Especially when the said Goddess had such an illustrious history as her? Shihoin Yoruichi, daughter of a petrol magnate and a famous business woman, a mixture of the best blood that could be found in New York and probably one of the most gossiped personas in the world. Top of her class, transferred from a posh-posh school to a charity college because her teachers did not challenge her enough. Author of a series of articles called: "Children are not stupid!", published and making her famous at 13, and she was dethroned when she hit 14 for being busted smoking pot outside the opera house. Crowned as the beauty of the state, she hadn't made it till the national round because of a sex scandal involving an older man, a member of the jury. Gone to Harvard thanks to her parents' name, left on the following year for no reason.

And now this….after almost a decade of absence, Shihoin Yoruichi had returned, with a revolutionary art exhibition in one of the most famous galleries, featuring over a hundred oil on canvas paintings , simply named "Redemption". Lovely paintings, such that, even on the opening night, critics were submitting online reviews and taking notes on their mobiles because they made such an impression. And he knew it because he'd been there to witness it.

In those ten years his boyish admiration for her had led him to become a journalist, just because of the opportunity to meet her again. His passion had cooled off significantly for one decade, enough to get him to settle down, marry and have a child, but not enough to stop him from following her after her hasty run from the hall when the photographers had become overly noisy.

And now he watched her sit in her too short black dress, throwing down a double scotch and couldn't help but feeling a slight tingle of excitement. He was finally going to have what he'd been dreaming for all his life-an interview with that amazing woman. He never wanted more than that, although she was known to be able to get more from that of the men of her life.

She looked up, as if sensing his presence and the gaze she gave him was positively hostile. For a second he felt ashamed, defiling this woman, when all she wanted was peace and quiet. People had chased her all her life, photographed her since birth, and never left her alone. But he was different, yes. He had earned his right to interview her, to bother her, with a lifetime's worth of admiration. He wasn't here to bother her, he was there to worship her. Yes…

"Do you remember when you were five?" he asked, forgoing all the other lame lines he used on women in the past "You were with your nanny on a parade, but instead of staying in the luxury restaurant to look at it from the high, you ran off into the street. The fairy tale themed floats were coming, and you somehow managed to go past security and climb on one of the horses that drove a Cinderella like carriage. The animal went wild and galloped forth, dragging the poor vehicle with Cinderella in it, and you couldn't stop laughing. While the police was taking you away, you blew a kiss into the crowd, but back then, I thought you were looking straight at me."

No reaction came from her, other than a slow blink, and he proceeded to explain how he'd fallen in love at first sight with her, even at the tender age of ten, and had spend the rest of his life gathering up every snippet of information about her, before begging her to let him interview her, for a one in a lifetime story. That's when she said: "Let's move to a more private place." And it felt like it was a dream come true.

She led him to a separate table that was surrounded from two sides by a wooden screen, a wall by the third, the pub's idea of a table. The waitress brought them two large plates of club sandwiches, a draft beer for him and another scotch for her, winked at no one in particular and drifted away. As he felt obliged to prove his words, he pulled out his pocketbook and showed her the pictures, articles, carefully folded magazine covers, and she looked through all of them carefully, turning the pages with the tips of her fingers, as if they were a tender old document.

"A one in a lifetime story…" she drawled, before finally closing it "I suppose you'll know if I try to thrust upon you one of those stories I give to the yellow page reporters so that they could leave me alone, right? No, don't speak. I've finally done something tonight…finally accomplished something with my own strength, my two hands. You know, after that parade incident my parents took me to the shrink and they said that I was in a desperate need for attention. As I grew, it became too immature an excuse and they started saying that it was a subconscious wish for me to set 'Yoruichi' apart from 'Shihoin', that is that I wanted to make something that only I could make. Well tonight, I finally accomplished it. And I can't even triumph properly because the exhibition was built over the grave of someone else. You want a one in a lifetime story? You better listen well…

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**Yoruichi POV:**

The lousy spray of air that blasted through the air conditioning did nothing to cool the atmosphere in the cabinet. Outside, it was so hot it felt like you were in an oven, but inside, it was worse because you could actually feel your body fluids boil. That, combined with the country music that sounded like Rodeo Rita's worst moments from the "Cramp Twins", made this day the worst day for anyone to be human.

The hot wind blew at my face, making my sleeveless shirt cling on my braless breasts when I looked out the window, much to the pleasure of the perv that sat behind the wheel of the truck I was currently using as part of my hitch-hike through the continent. I'd already been through most of the southern states and was now on my way to California, in a truck that carried frozen potatoes for McDonalds, in the company of a very faithful follower of the drive-thru cult and his two-inch boner. I wasn't too busy wondering whether the guy would pull over and ask her to pay au natural for the ride or have the grace to wait for a decent hotel to come our way, because two months after I'd left Harvard I'd managed to screw more truck drivers than he could count, just to go on the other side of the Mason-Dixon line.

I knew it would be soon, anyway. His little buddy was already straining his pants, but I hoped that he'd mind his cholesterol clogged veins and stop under the shade of some cactus. However, apparently after going miles and miles of a straight road, with not a single car on either side of the line, he'd grown tired because he pulled over, without even bothering to get off the road, and climbed over the brake to grab me.

And even though I'd banged more truck drivers than I could count, most of them had been either polite, married or hygiene aware. Lying on the front seat while a guy in a greasy under vest licked my ear and unbuttoned my jeans was just too gross.

One kick in the nuts and a huge hissy fit after, I was walking through Death Valley, my backpack over my head as a makeshift hat, cursing horny asses all the way. The only real comfort that I could get out of this situation was that according to the map, there was a gas station in this part of the valley, a gas station which me didn't pass for sure and where I could find shelter. The bad news was that I didn't know how long it would take me to get there, since a nail's length on the map might be a thousand miles in real life, and I was never good at math.

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An hour later I was dehydrating in the sand when I heard the sharp roar of an engine and a puff of smoky air, just before a loud voice called "Miss, are you alright?" and I was dragged into the safe confines of a large SUV. By the time it took off and the cooler started to work, I was so exhausted that I was seeing black spots dancing in front of my eyes.

However, when I came to (mostly thanks to a water bottle pressed on my cheek), the first thing I saw was…black. And I'm not even kidding here, it was indeed black, not skin color black, or blue black, or black chocolate. It was pure black, and what stunned me most was that it turned out to be the color of a dress. The person who cradled my head into her lap was wearing a crude cotton black dress with long sleeves-probably the worst combination when you travel in the desert. When I looked up, of course, I got my answer. It was a nun!

For a split second I was (not) afraid I had fallen into the clutches of some sect that toured the country by van, promoting their Judas bibles and path to salvation through credit card investments. Luckily, the music that blared out of the stereo, a mix between 80's hits, Ashlee Simpson and Backstreet boys, told me that I was safely traveling with some family. One of four, judging by their voices, a long-time couple with two daughters on the respective ages of 13 and 9. Middle class, middle aged, average income, the sort of people that live in a suburban one-story villa, religious enough to take a nun along the way, but too concerned for their daughters to take up any other hitch-hiking stray cat, unless she was passed out on the road and the nun invoked their Christian piety.

I had managed to notice that during the ride to the gas station where, by the deep throat croaking that had become my way of communication in the last couple of hours, I told them to leave me. The parents seemed relieved, the girls didn't care as long as they got to stop and they had a chance to browse through the CD's that they offered inside, and so the good sister helped me descend and wobble to the shelter of the restaurant inside. It didn't occur to me to thank her until (after drinking a liter of tap water from the bathroom), I became aware that she was still with me.

"Aren't you supposed to be with those folks?" I asked, and then, out of respect, added "Sister?"

"Not at all. I told them that I would stay with you until you were better." She replied in the smoothest, softest voice I'd ever heard, one that sounded grim but still warmed you up. It actually made me look away from her veil (a habit picked up in Catholic School), and at her face-round, smooth, white as an eggshell, with a long nose, speckled with freckles, and full, red lips. I couldn't see her hair, but her eyebrows and lashes were a strange greenish blond, one that had people wonder. That is, if they weren't busy looking into her eyes-big, soft, full of sadness and pity. They had the weirdest shade of green-bluish, muted, but still green, like dusty gemstones.

I was so stunned that I forgot to register what she had said. And then burst out:

"I am better! Go back before they run away!"

"That would be ridiculous. They already have." She pointed out, as she followed me out of the bathroom and showed me that, among the cars parked on the lot, there were no SUVs. I was about to throw a fit, but she grabbed my hand and led me to the restaurant, guiding me firmly, but gently

"But…but…don't they feel bad for leaving you like this?" I stammered when she made me sit down on a table.

"They picked me up from the road, just like you." She replied "Out of duty, I suppose. They did not feel bad about leaving me when it turned out that this was a medial bus stop."

"When…"

"Just now." She thrust me a menu "You should eat something. You looked very faint on the road."

And didn't I feel like it. Luckily, I always had money, cash and check, and I could afford to order half the menu to the waitress, who only blinked at my order and then dashed off to fulfill it. The nun, however, asked for nothing.

"You ought to eat to." I prompted, offering her the menu, but she shook her head.

"One must eat in the times that are chosen for meals, unless one is sick and needs it." she replied. As I felt a string of profanities coming up, I realized I didn't have a name to fling them at, which is how I ended up asking her for it. "Neliel. Sister Neliel."

"Well what do you know…." I huffed. No family name, but there was a slight Latin accent to her voice, which led me to think that she was probably from Mexico. Probably crossed the border recently. "Where are you going?"

"Right now, I'm not going anywhere. I have to make sure you are alright." Neliel replied

"No…I mean…where were you headed to? Hitch-hiking through Death Valley without friends or secure transport is…" something I would do "Weird."

"I had no option. I have no one to turn to in terms of transportation but God." She said calmly

"Aren't you headed somewhere? Can't you ask those who are in charge of…whatever convent you're headed to, to arrange your travel?"

"I am not headed to anywhere in particular. If you allow me, I can even ride with your friends, when they arrive."

"What friends?"

"You asked to be left here. If you didn't expect someone, why did you ask for it?"

"No reason." I mumbled, staring at her grim expression "Sorry. I was sorta planning on asking someone to pick me up as well."

"Someone like that person who left you alone in the middle of the desert?" Neliel shook her head "Perhaps the two of us should try to ask for a ride together, good people are more willing to take a nun than any other person because they are sure she would do them no wrong."

I couldn't agree more. Although there was the option to wait for a bus. Apparently, the gas station also had a motel and served several travel companies. There was often a bus coming through headed for Mexico from L.A. or vice versa, and if your car broke down or you had little money or were a hitch-hiker (like them), you could purchase a ticket to the bus. I found that out by reading the flyers that were stacked under the sugar bowl as I munched on a breakfast for ten. Unfortunately, the next bus would come tomorrow noon, meaning that I would have to stay the night at the motel.

It was a setback, but then again I had all the time on my hands and the prospect of sheets and roof over my head were a lot better than marching through the desert in the freezing night.

I looked back at sister Neliel, who had pulled a breviary out of her backpack and was reading it with serene concentration. For a split second I forgot to chew, before I spat:

"You knew I'd be fine, didn't you!"

That seemed to get her attention because she looked back at me. "How did you know?"

"Of course I'd be fine, I'm tenacious. You should've stayed with those folks, not waste both our time dragging behind me."

"I am a servant of God." She replied, now calmly "It is my job to help the ones who need help. Do you think that they would've taken you from that road if I hadn't asked them? People nowadays are too afraid that they would get a bullet for being the good Samarians and leave the others to relieve the suffering of the world. How exactly do you expect for it to become a better place then, if you do not try to change it?"

That set me aback for a second, before I replied: "You still could've left me alone. I can handle everything myself."

"You cannot and would not unless somebody points your stubborn head into some direction and pushes you into it." Sister Neliel said with such certitude it almost freaked me out "Is that not right, Shihoin Yoruichi-san?"

"How did you know my name?!" I jumped as if stung by a bee

"I believe that it is not difficult to remember your face." She said "Three months ago, you left Harvard after turning it into a clown house and have been out of sight ever since. Ah, you didn't think a nun like me would watch the news?"

"Or care about tabloids." I replied, irritated that my reputation managed to catch up with me, before giving the restaurant a careful glance

"They do not know who you are, nor ever will." She said calmly "People are nowadays interested only in themselves, or, at most, at the person they share a bed with."

"You sure have one hell of a potty mouth. Are you sure you are a nun?"

"Yes." She stated firmly "And it is my job to look after those I save until I'm sure they can follow the right road. You better eat before that cheese turns into rubber."

"I rarely follow the right road. You'll be stuck with me for an eternity." I said smugly, hoping to irritate her, break her. All I got was a stern look and a mocking smile, as if you knew something I didn't, and that made me sound ridiculous.

We didn't talk, but I paid the waitress to bring me coffee while I looked over at Neliel from time to time. She was engrossed in her read, I was engrossed in thoughts. My initial plan when I left Harvard, you see, was to get away from all the pressure and think. However, that couldn't happen whenever I was at rest, so I decided to get a move on and hiked my way through the Southern States. My plan now was to go Alaska or Canada, where I would definitely be able to find some R&R, but my plans didn't involve a nun that tagged along.

Still, she probably would get off at some other stop and she could help me get a break from truck drivers. So I tried to converse with her again: "Which order are you from?"

"No order in particular." She replied evenly

"Huh…How can you take the veil and not be in some order?" I asked

"It is complicated."

"We have it until tomorrow, I think you'll manage."

She set the book down and looked at me wearily. "It is true that I want to take the veil, and I've taken it in many places, but I have never truly become more than a novice anywhere."

"But isn't religion the same?" I asked

"God is the same." She corrected, her nose high in the air "It is the way of serving him that makes me uncertain about the order. Everyone interprets His words in their own way, and since I do not know how to serve Him, I search among the others for an interpretation that would help me understand."

"That's rather shallow, isn't it? How can you possibly decide on something like that if you don't know how you want to serve Him?"

"I thought you wouldn't understand." She shook her head

"How can I? You didn't say anything! If you want people to understand you, sister, you'll have to speak clearly."

Neliel regarded me for a long moment, before sighing. "It's difficult. Whenever I try to tell people everything, they treat me like a freak and refuse to listen to me. They either think I lie to them and get angry, or, even worse, decide I'm mocking them and shun me."

"Well, if you know who I am, there is no point of worrying over that. Tell you what…In an act of good will, I'll tell you some stuff about me, personal shit, and you will tell me your personal shit too. Deal?"

"You are not serious about it." she replied, seeing right through me "You will either lie or attempt to deceive me. It would be a waste of time. Besides, whatever happens, you do not have serious motivation to know my reasons to choose religion over the many other…ways to deal with my problems."

"Oh, so you admit that you had problems? I can imagine a few reasons that would make you choose to be a nun, but they are none of my business, yes. But listen here, Sister Neliel, I'm not a role model. I'm drinking, using, having sex recklessly; you knew that, and yet you saved me. Since I cannot save you in return, why not listen to you? Talking lifts the burden, that's why they have made confessions. To know that you'll be forgiven if you say Ave Maria a number of times and put your guilty consciousness into words is the ultimate relief."

"Ah, but you don't only have to believe that God listens to your confessions, you must offer it straight from your heart. You must confess with no second thought in mind, for the sake of telling God, not for being forgiven. The only one that can truly forgive you is the person you did wrong to."

"We're both right." I said "However, I give you what the people think, not what religion says. They're not two different sides of the same question, they're two totally different things."

"True." Neliel nodded "But what can you possibly tell me that I already don't know from what little news I've heard? That you are an infamous party girl that causes scandals everywhere she goes, then patches things up with the money of her parents, money she has not made and has no right to spend."

"Maybe that I mean every single on the things I do." I offered "Maybe because my mother believes in Signs, and that, when I started spitting food across the table at two years of age, she already knew that I would end up as a cheap hooker that fucks for a cigarette and removed all factors from my life that could lead me to such a horrible life, factors that turned out to be things I liked. Maybe because I hate both my parents and that they hate me back, because I can't be perfect and they can't live with it. Maybe because I'm sick of shrinks that try to find an excuse for my behavior, to call it curable and say that there is still hope that this lost cause turns into the picture perfect daughter, so that they could have the money my rich daddy pays them to tell him things he wants to hear."

I played with my fork, before continuing. "I hate my parents. From my overwhelming mom, who seems to have more balls than my father when it comes to business and no balls when it comes to defending me. From my father whose idea of moral was not to screw me because I'm related by blood to him. From one to the other, because they treat me like a soulless thing, and with them, so does the entire world. I am but an object, thanks to them, nobody takes me seriously. I'm dying to be someone, to do something by myself, and yet whenever I go I am first introduced as the Shihoin heiress, and then as Yoruichi. It sucks, but I don't really think _anyone_ knows it, because they treat me like some sort of rich daddy's girl!"

It was true. I always seemed to scream that out to other people, but they never listened. And here, I thought that she would listen.

Sister Neliel listened to me, eyes half closed, as if she was meditating while I gushed out about my life. It was a little comical-a Christian nurse looking like a little Buddha, who looked down on people while they offered their prayers. However, I wasn't praying. At least that's what I thought, until she spoke up.

"But you really are."

"What?!" I seethed, absolutely stunned by the way she suddenly looked exactly like my nanny. Nanny Olbrite…I wonder if she still lectures no gooders like me about sharing and prospect.

"You really are a rich daddy's girl." She repeated, as if she doubted I had heard her the first time

"Excuse me, didn't I just wax eloquent about how much I want to be someone, and the reason I'm taking this goddamn escape is because I want to break free from those jackasses and their biology-based excuses for my behavior?"

"But right now, you're paying for this food with the money your parents give you. Doesn't financial dependence make breaking free a little difficult?" when did that nun turn so real, I thought, and since there was really no good answer to that, I let her continue "Making a name for yourself requires a degree of maturity, which you do not demonstrate by ranting like a teenager. _Boo-ho, I have no life, nobody takes me seriously. Everything comes too easy for me, everyone expects nothing of me but look pretty._ If you turn down your parents' money, hw will you ever accomplish anything by running away from those who can really give you a head start?"

"You're talking about Harvard again?" I sighed, this time aloud "How could I accomplish anything when those jerks didn't even give me a chance to break a sweat?"

"Did you ever search for a chance to break a sweat? In fact, did you even try to prove others wrong and actually accomplish something on your own?"

I tried to defend myself. She couldn't know how hard it actually was for me to stay there, for a full year, suffering from annoying no-gooders and sleazy professors who only cared about getting into my pants and my parents' good graces. But she was merciless.

"They…"

"You should stay until you succeed. Until then, everything else would be worthless. Instead of acting like a child that covers her ears when she hears something that she doesn't like, you should work hard to prove all of them wrong and live the triumph to be the one that told them so. By this act of running away, you do nothing to set yourself apart from the other lot of good-for-nothings millionaire daughters who throw their lives into the sewers for sex and cocaine."

I was silent. Not because I was stunned into silence by her words, no, although they were true, but more because I couldn't comprehend how people who craved for objectivity failed to be objective. Yes, of course, she was right. I could've stayed, graduated on top of everyone, using nothing but my own skill and a toothpick. But she was overlooking the fact that, for a lifetime of striving to get away from my family, I had grown tired. If I told her so, she would retort that twenty something years was nothing, especially when I didn't spend ALL of them so much fighting for my freedom, as fighting against my parents, and order in particular. I would have replied that it was stupid because I wasn't rebelling against injustice in general, I was rebelling against a hyperbolized, perverted and ridiculous sort of role imposed on me by my parents.

But I said none of those things because I was wondering how the hell was she expecting me to understand when she pointed out the reasonable arguments for my behavior, when I relied on the purely sentimental ones? And why, if she was so set on showing me the error of my ways, was she fighting with vinegar when she had to use oil? Why not approach me through my own ways?

"You know…" I finally said "If you ever give up on searching for the true religion, you can always set up your own branch. You're a gifted preacher."

"Just because I've taken the veil does not mean I am out of contact with reality. In fact, one of the many faults I find, wherever I search for wisdom and guidance, is that people have gotten detached from life. They live, doubled over their tomes, analyzing and deducing, without going outside and wondering how on Earth will their work contribute to the amelioration of the lives of the other. How will preaching relieve the suffering, or help those that need help? How will a dissertation on the Gospels help all those starving people on the streets, or give comfort to the millions of people dying of cancer, AIDS and a broken heart? What point is there even to be good when you cannot do goodness to those around you?"

She paused long enough to take a breath: "People have become so absorbed into their own problems, thinking about their own good, that they do not care for anyone anymore, unless they give them some merit or another. We have ceased to do good for the sake of helping, and care only for the sake off caring. You were right earlier, people do confess because they want to wash their hands of the responsibility. But if they do not feel genuinely sorry, they will not be forgiven-a fact that is comfortably not mentioned by the clergy. So what? One sin, others let them sin, and in the end, who cares who is the bigger sinner, when people have ceased to love?"

"Is this our grand dilemma?" I asked "That people are ungrateful asswipes, so you want to make them better and turned to religion?"

"No. I had visions."

In spite of everything, I did not laugh. Nor did I act all high and mighty, or treat her with disrespect. I did not call her a freak and stormed off. Most of all, I urged her to continue.

Make no mistake, I did not believe her then and there. I don't think I believed her at all, for all her life. But in spite of my closed upbringing, I had come in contact with New York's divertive environment. Many of my closest friends were weird, queer, schizophrenic or plain insane. A hallucinating nun didn't even come in my list of fifty weirdest things I've seen in my life. And then, when she started explaining that she sees the future, but not only my future, but the future of the other "me"s, those alter ego's that could've been created thanks to one or another choice I've taken in my life, I wasn't one bit surprised. Not only sci-fi authors theorize on the multiple dimension thing, scientists and self-proclaimed clergymen all talk about time as a web that is made by every decision every human being on this planet makes. Depending on one person's choice, the future of many could be resolved, or vice-versa. It wasn't mumbo-jumbo, it was a very certifiable and believable theory, and I wasn't the least bit impressed that Neliel was also sporting it in her visions. She'd known me from my pictures on TV, thus she was probably up-to-date with everything. It wasn't all that impossible that she'd heard it from somewhere and come up with all that stuff to get some color into her life.

I didn't condemn her for having a vivid imagination. She didn't try to convince me by telling me what would happen ten seconds from now. But she did tell me how she'd been having these visions since she was little, and thanks to them, nobody in her village wanted to take her for a bride, thus her family put before her two choices-leave for the city to earn her living, or take the veil, as a worthless daughter was nothing but a deadweight where she came from. Since Neliel had been disgusted with the city, she decided to become a nun, while secretly hoping that by dedicating her life to serving God, she'd be able to find an explanation for her strange visions.

However, she soon found that nothing, even prayers, could rid her of those disturbing images, and thus headed off to search for someone to answer her questions and point her a way to serve God that would satisfy her. Thus, she ended up here, with me.

"I believe in the general laws of Christianity." Neliel said "I believe that we must love all other, in spite of what they have done to us, and search to do them good."

"I guess that explains a lot." I sneered "Any other priest or nun would've hesitated to rescue a scumbag like me."

"It depends on how loosely you define the term." She replied "It is a question of faith, not of principle."

"Is it?" I asked, finishing my coffee in one long gulp.

"If one believes…"

"Yeah, belief…" I snorted "It's one of the biggest pieces of bullshit on earth!"

"It provides DOUBT." Neliel out shouted me "Because if people knew for certain what happens after death, they would cheat their way into paradise and Hell would become as empty as the Gobi desert."

We stared at each other, before we both burst into laughter. Actually, I laughed first, and then she chuckled along, giving me a Mona Lisa smile that looked so natural on her I wondered if she could work as a model if she gave up on whatever she was doing right now. Was it pre-destined? I wish it was. Perhaps I was meant to meet this woman, on this highway, in this desert, to talk to her like I've never talked to anyone before in my life. Someone said that in order to prove that not all ravens were black, you had to find one white. She was my white raven. Or swallow, if I had to trust Eastern-European authors.

I remembered that in the end of the semester, I was so bored senseless that I turned to minority groups for entertainment. The only really notable one was that of a Russian, an Ukrainian and a Bulgarian, who were brought together by nothing other than the Cyrillic roots of their native tongues. The Russian and the Ukrainian always bickered because of the things Stalin did back in his reign, and the Bulgarian was desperately trying to stay away from any people from Asia Minor, and Turkey in specific because of some slavery that occurred in the 13th-19th century. Or something like that. Ironically, the Bulgarian talked to me most, after I affirmed that the color of my skin had nothing to do with the countries in the forbidden region. He told me of some ridiculous tests his people took after they graduated, just so that they could get into the university, and that for one of those tests he had to study a story by some guy named Iovkov, about a girl that was dying from tuberculosis and her family set out on the dusty roads because of a rumor that a white swallow had flown in, and the said bird was rumored to cure anything. The guy translated the text roughly to me, and I thought that a white swallow as the symbol of hope was much, much better than anything else that could be sent to you.

But whether she was a swallow or a raven, that was not the point. The point was that she was white. That her unusual plumage somehow made her different than all the rest, that she was predestined to be the one person to prove me wrong about the fact that mankind is doomed since the clock struck the beginning of the Y2K. But it did little to explain the rest.

* * *

I took a room in the motel for the two of us, since she refused to take a room that I paid for her. I left her to take care of herself while I went to the bathroom, and while I was taking a shower the strangest thing occurred. Under the water, my body slowly started to heat up. And I really mean heat up. By the time I got out, I was so hot that my skin was dry on its own.

This was silly, I told myself. Sure, I had experimented (when hadn't I?), but none of those trysts had held any special significance for me, nor had they been inspired by some sort of attraction. I tried shrugging it off and wrapped a bath robe around me, but just as I was about to go to the room, I caught a glimpse of myself in the mirror.

Staring right back at me was…me. But the small difference there was that I was smirking cruelly at some sort of joke the me in this word couldn't understand. Slowly, I approached the looking glass and looked at myself closely, trying to be intimidating, but my reflection just kept smiling at me. What is it? I wanted to scream at myself, but even in my state of blind fury I could realize it was an overly dramatic gesture.

I closed my eyes and counted to ten, expecting things to become normal when I open them again. However, the me in the mirror world was still mocking me, with my eyes and my smile. "This is not happening." I told myself, but the reflection seemed to say "This will happen."

"How can you know?" I whispered, coaxed into its play, observing the image for some flaw, for something to tell me whether I was dreaming or not. The bathrobe hung loosely on it, showing off more and more skin, and when I tried pulling it tighter around myself, the mirror showed me opening it even more until the ends barely covered my tight breasts and hinted of the hardened nipples underneath, while my thighs gleamed seductively from the shower I had just taken, the only thing keeping their apex from view was the fact that they were tightly pressed together. I shivered, in spite of the heat.

"Fool yourself all you want, you'll end up doing it anyway." My reflection seemed to say, still smirking cruelly.

"You see things in reverse when you look in a mirror" I told myself, but it just laughed

"And have you ever wondered if you may be the real you? Haven't you ever thought that the mirror shows the unveiled you, the real you? I am what you are, you are but a perverted shadow of your true self."

A fever was slowly settling in my body, and I turned my eyes from the mirror. Stumbling out into the room, I breathed a sigh of relief to see that Neliel had changed into a long, flowing nightgown that covered her from neck to toe. For the sake of preserving my sanity, I focused my eyes on her hands, clad in white, holding a rosary.

"Yoruichi-san!" she exclaimed "Are you alright?"

I looked at myself, wondering what had she meant, and realized with horror that somewhere along the way, my bathrobe had become undone just like in the mirror, and I quickly struggled to pull it together. However, the small commotion had made me look up and the sight in front of me stunned me speechless.

Her clothes were folded neatly over the small suitcase that contained all her possessions, and she had spread out a small blanket on the floor as a makeshift bed. Her lovely breast was rising and falling quickly with shock as she watched me, and I couldn't help but note that it was quite lovely. But what caught me was her hair. Pulled ruthlessly into a braid and pinned to her head, it was a lovely shade of blond, but it seemed so deep it almost looked green. Emerald. It was lovely, exotic, almost unreal.

The distance separating us was overcome in two short paces and I reached over to stroke one of the imprisoned locks with dumb admiration. Instinctively, she drew back, and I stepped forth, my fingers digging deeper into her hair and combing through it, fiddling with the obstacles that they found. Finally, I cornered her between the window and myself, and I laughed roughly when she squeaked slightly when my hands roughly dove into her hair, releasing it from all its confines.

The funny thing is that, like my reflection, she knew what was going to happen too.

"You don't want to do this…" She said

"But I will…" I replied, forcing my mouth on hers roughly. Then, before she could react, grabbed her by the shoulders and started dragging her towards the bed. I pinned her down, using my own weight to settle her there, underneath me "I've never met anyone as pure as you before. Can you blame me for trying to taint you?"

For a while, she did not said a word, and then she smiled. She smiled, and I felt so damn angry that I wanted to wipe that goddamn freaking smile from her face. So very, very much….

Have you ever lived out such a fantasy, to take someone against their will and still for them to take it on so willingly and enjoy it so readily? I've never had this fantasy, and yet I never stop being amazed at the fact that she gave into me so easily. No, I will not tell you what we did, what happened there, in that dingy motel room, on that cold night. I cannot describe what we did, or how we did it, just as I cannot describe to myself what feelings did I experience when I touched her again and again, making her scream her pleasure again and again to no-one in particular. Sex never held any special significance to me, and yet back then…I cannot bring myself to speak of it. Thoughts, desires and intentions have a huge power inside of our minds, but when we put them to words, or write them down, they seem to lose a part of their significance.

What happened back there went beyond the physical, if you catch my drift. If I didn't know better, I would've said I was high on LSD. I saw her sighs, tasted the color of her hair, and came just at her utterance of my name.

I wonder why she didn't hate me. Why she chose to be passive, when she could've screamed for help and gotten one for certain. This wasn't some cheap love motel, people did care for their customers. Afterwards, I even asked her. She just told me that she was happy to have met me.

"How can you say that?" I asked. Even when she was stark naked in front of me, Neliel commanded respect. "After what I just did, how can you say that? Never mind, I don't want to know. From now on, you're sticking with me!" I said, hugging her, pillowing my head on her breasts, promptly deciding to fall asleep. But since then, I cannot help but wonder why she kept smiling at me like that. Perhaps she had seen it coming."

* * *

They were silent. Finally, he broke the silence.

"Is this Neliel the reason why you reformed?"

"You don't know the half of it." Yoruichi sighed, chugging her drink down in one gulp "In the morning, I woke up in an empty bed. Her suitcase was packed, she had dressed and left, just like that." She snapped with her fingers "Even her scent had lingered away from the sheets, as if she never existed. I looked all over for her, but nobody had seen her leave. Nobody. I even scanned the sand for footprints, but even if she had started walking down the highway on foot, the wind had already erased any trace of her."

She sighed. "I like to think that she's still somewhere out there. That…she's alright, still looking for her answers. She hadn't found it with me, obviously. Or maybe she had. I don't know. But when I was waiting for the bus to arrive, one of the drivers that dined in the gas station offered to give me a ride. I had half a mind to accept, when I suddenly saw in my mind the road in flames. Boom! The truck going up in flames, engulfing everything around me. I could even feel the heat and smell the smoke. I got so freaked that I declined, and waited for the bus.

"When later on I heard the sirens and saw the cars of the traffic police, I just knew that it had happened. Ever since then…ever since then I get those visions. Disasters and completely mundane things alike. I even saw you coming, the man who claims to be my biggest fan. But at first, I got so freaked out, all I wanted to do was find Neliel. I went to the big city, hired detectives to search for her, but to no end. She was missing without a trace. A part of me just knew that she had died, soon after we'd been together-that's why I started having visions. She'd chosen me to have this ability."

He stared at her. "Why? Why you of all people?"

"Why me of all people?" Yoruichi repeated carefully "I guess because I was her white swallow too. But back to your original question…when I realized that I wouldn't find her because she was just not here, I turned to the canvas. I painted those screens in an attempt to create a world where she might have been born to, to where she might have returned to, and a world where I could go too." With that, she rose soundlessly, threw a couple of bills on the table and swaggered out of the bar.

He, on the other hand, sat there, watching her glass, wondering if he really hadn't been sleeping right now. The Dictaphone on the table was still working, recording the random sounds that came from around-the clinging of glasses, the shouts, the corny music, even the sound of cigarettes being extinguished in the ashtrays. It wasn't until the waitress shook him by the shoulders and made him realize that they were about to close down. He rose to pay, and was just about to leave, when the girl exclaimed.

"Good Lord, what is this!" he followed her gaze around and over the table, to the place where Yoruichi-san's glass still stood. Only now he realized that it was broken, and that the sharp shreds pointing up were smeared with blood. There was also blood on the bills tucked under the ashtray, the payment for her drinks she had left before going out the door. He stood there, staring at them, dumbstruck. How on Earth had she managed to pull this off? How could've he stood there the whole night, staring at this very glass, without noticing it? Had her voice lulled him into a state where he only saw what he wanted to see? Or what she wanted him to see? Had she been planning to do that all night, or had it been a spontaneous decision? Why had she picked him to share her story with when she was planning on hurting herself?

He paid for the glass and walked outside. For a while, he looked around, hoping to see a trace of red drops that would lead him to her, but of course, even if there had been such, it was long erased by the millions of people that had walked here after her, and that would surely walk again.

He closed his eyes, trying to see into the future, to see himself writing a book in her honor and win a Pulitzer for it…but all he could see was a building headache and another scandal with his wife. Sighing, he headed for the nearest cab, reached over for the handle…and then decided against it. No flames burst in front of his eyes, he just…decided that he wanted to walk.

Perhaps she had chosen him as well…

* * *

A/N-Lame, genius or just sick? Do share, you lovely masochists....


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